Currently, there is no precedent of building a deep ocean current power plant in the world, but there are many testing turbines designed for tidal power plants in shallow sea of which the depth is within 20 meters. For example, the company, Seagen & Seaflow based in UK, set up a single turbine of 300 kW named SeaFlow in Lynmouth, on the North Devon Coast of the United Kingdom on May 2003 (refer to Kuroshio power plant development plan. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 14 (2010) 2655-2668). In 2008, Strangford Lough of Northern Ireland successfully set up a dual turbine of 1.2 MW named SeaGen (refer to Kuroshio power plant development plan. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 14 (2010) 2655-2668). The generator which is running approximately 18-20 h/day has a link to the local power grid.
Recently, a demonstrative power plant with a power capacity of 20-25 kW located on the coast of British Columbia province in Canada, and the Retrofit Bridge Project located in Tacoma City, Wash. state in United States will set up Davis Hydro Turbines under the bridge (refer to Kuroshio power plant development plan. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 14 (2010) 2655-2668). The above projects are still categorized into tidal power plants in shallow sea.
A deep ocean current power plant is the power project in Gulf Stream belonging to Florida Atlantic University (refer to Kuroshio power plant development plan. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 14 (2010) 2655-2668). The nature of ocean currents in the two places is similar in the depth which is mostly more than hundreds of meters. However, the present invention uses different power plant structure and techniques.